More Than 60,000 Hospital Patients Exposed To Hepatitis C
A recent federal report showed the number of patients getting hepatitis from contaminated syringes and medicine vials is much larger than you would think.
Over 60,000 people were exposed to hepatitis, and at least 400 people were infected with it in 33 outbreaks linked to poor safety violations, the report said.
Health workers infected many patients by only discarding the syringes’ used needles and then snapping on sterile ones, unaware that the plastic barrel part of a syringe can also become contaminated. Reusing it even with a fresh needle also can contaminate the medicine vial.
Authorities believe many more cases may go unreported and the lack of care and cleanliness that went on in medical clinics and doctors’ offices is disturbing. The most publicized cases occurred in Nevada, Nebraska and New York.
The report said the cases it highlighted probably represent a much wider problem.
Researcher and co-author of the report, Joseph Perz of the Centers for Disease and Prevention, said that syringe reuse is something that’s obviously wrong.
"It really represents a breakdown in very basic patient safety. There really is a sense of outrage among many providers and others working in this area when they hear about some of these outbreaks and some of the practices," he told the Associated Press.
Ignorance and lack of oversight are the main causes of such offenses, according to the CDC.
“Sometimes doctors or nurses injected several patients from single-use medicine vials to cut corners or to save money," Perz said.
Perz is among those speaking at a Washington D.C. conference next week, where the CDC is working with patient advocates to raise awareness about the problem. Infection control specialists and nurse anesthetists are also part of the coalition.
The campaign is designed to alert doctors, nurses and other medical workers that syringes must only be used once. Patients should be watchful, too, asking about safety precautions and speaking up if they see or suspect a violation.
A Web site and written training materials will accompany the campaign, being held later this month in Nevada.
At least nine hepatitis cases were directly linked to reuse of syringes and vials at two now-closed Las Vegas outpatient clinics. An additional 105 cases were considered possibly linked to the clinics’ practices.
Hepatitis C is the most common form of the potentially life-threatening viral infection. Some 3 million Americans are carriers of Hepatitis C, which can cause severe liver damage. Hepatitis may cause no initial symptoms and can go undetected for years.
Hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases like the AIDS virus can be easily spread even if a needle is not reused.
For example, plastic syringes with snap-on needles are used to draw medicine from a vial. The drug is then injected into a patient who may be carrying hepatitis, but may not know it. The virus in the patient’s blood can seep back into the syringe barrel, and then into any medicine vial used with the now-contaminated syringe.
Infection is still possible even if new sterile needles are attached to the contaminated syringe, or if a new sterile syringe and needle are used once the vial is contaminated. The medicine can then carry the hepatitis virus to another patient.
Evelyn McKnight, one of the leaders of the awareness movement, learned that she had contracted hepatitis C through chemotherapy for breast cancer in 2002.
Health workers at the Fremont, Neb. Clinic, where she was being treated, reused syringes that had been used on a hepatitis-infected cancer patient along with a saline bag that also had become contaminated.
That clinic infected some 99 patients with hepatitis. A doctor and nurse lost their licenses in the case.
The 54 year-old McKnight underwent six months of expensive drug treatment and is now healthy, although she said the awful experience led her to form the advocacy group.
"I just knew that I wanted something good to come from this," she said.
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